A 76-year-old Auburn man who was sentenced to 30 years in the 1979 stabbing death of his wife was charged with murder Monday after he fatally stabbed a Lewiston woman in front of her twin boys on Sunday, authorities said.

Around 11 a.m. Sunday, Albert Flick allegedly stabbed Kimberly Dobbie, 48, on a downtown Lewiston sidewalk in front of Rancourt’s Laundromat, just after she started a load of laundry, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety. Her 11-year-old twin boys witnessed the attack.

A nearby man who saw the stabbing immediately wrestled Flick to the ground and held him there until police arrived and took him into custody, McCausland said. Dobbie was rushed to the Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, where she later succumbed to her injuries, he said.

Flick was taken to the same hospital on Sunday for reported chest pains. Upon his release from the hospital Monday, he was placed under arrest and charged with murder, McCausland said.

It’s unclear what motivated the attack — the latest assault in a spate of violent incidents that has roiled the Lewiston community over recent weeks and put pressure on local police.

McCausland said Flick knew Dobbie — who was living at the faith-based Hope Haven shelter in Lewiston when she died — but he did not elaborate on the nature of their relationship. There is no indication the two were romantically involved, he said.

Flick is expected to appear in Androscoggin Superior Court at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday in connection to the Sunday stabbing. He is being held at the Androscoggin County Jail in Auburn.

Neary four decades ago, in January 1979, Flick stabbed his wife, Sandra Flick, to death in the couple’s Westbrook apartment, according to a Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruling that details the facts of the case. After Flick was convicted of the crime in Cumberland County Superior Court, he unsuccessfully appealed the decision to Maine’s high court. He was sentenced to serve 30 years in state prison in Knox County, according to his archived case file, a clerk said Monday.

That murder occurred just weeks after his wife served him divorce papers, when he returned to the apartment he previously shared with her and attacked her with a 3½-inch-long jackknife, according to the court ruling.

During his murder trial, Sandra’s daughter from a prior marriage, Elsie Kimball, testified that she was at the Brown Street apartment when the murder took place, and that Albert showed up on the pretense of getting some of his old belongings. Kimball said she watched through a crack in a bedroom doorway as Albert asked her mother about a fishing pole, then suddenly grabbed her and pushed her onto a chair, shouting that he loved her, the court document states.

Kimball ran from the bedroom, and overheard Albert shout, “Now you’ve had it,” as she fled to a downstairs apartment.

Sunday’s attack — which occurred two days after police arrested a man who shot at someone on a downtown block — prompted Lewiston Police Chief Brian O’Malley to announce an increase in police patrols as well as the assistance of the Maine State Police and Maine Drug Enforcement Agency on drug cases. The chief attributed the recent violence to a surge of drugs in the city.

“Many of these issues come back to substance abuse issues, domestic violence and mental health issues that need to be addressed within this community and state,” he wrote.